DMJ

This came up in the Dynamite thread and I've obviously seen it elsewhere (r/sc), but can someone explain to me how and why Cody became one of the most despised people in wrestling? So much of the criticisms lobbed against him are provably false and some of them are super nitpicky (my favorite current criticism is that he hasn't lost to Aleister Black clean enough yet.) Are his matches and angles the best part of AEW? No...but, like Jericho, the dude helped launch the company so he's going to get his minutes. And I'm not sure one can really argue that he's gotten time at the expense of anyone else. The QT Marshall feud sucked, to be sure, and it certainly reeked of Cody pushing his buddy more than he deserves/deserved, but it was midcard filler and treated as such. It just seems the vitriol against Cody is a bit much considering his biggest crime seems to be having entrances that are too grandiose. Like, yeah, sure, but I also think one could argue that (a) having those entrances helped AEW not look bush league when it first started and he was undeniably one of the bigger "names" and (b) it has played perfectly well into what most people consider to be an impending, inevitable heel turn. As for him as a worker, I'll just say this: he's not a super worker and I don't think he's ever claimed to be or even really tried to work like one. But I don't find him to be offensively bad and am kinda shocked that some do.

I'm not so sure. I hate to turn this into more of a political talk, but part of what is so scary (to me) about Trump is that he radicalized the "common sense" Republicans who initially voted for him as the "Anyone But Her" candidate but then became dyed-in-the-wool acolytes who now view him as not just a great president, but the greatest president ever, a demigod. That's my father-in-law. A steady diet of Fox News and Trump sloganeering turned a principled person who leaned conservative but also had a "live and let live" social view into someone who vehemently believes that all Democrats are either pure evil or just ignorant about the fact that the DNC is a cabal of child-raping sex traffickers and inexplicably fears that Joe Biden is going to personally take his guns, give his home to a drug-dealing immigrant family, and require him to self-identify as a trans woman the next time he goes in for a driver's license. I'm not sure Vince has gone that far, but like the rest of the Republican party, the power of Trump has probably pushed him much farther right than he would have ever been if someone like, say, Jeb Bush or John Kasich, who weren't as eager to spark a full-on cultural civil war for their own gain, had become President in 2016. The Joe Gacy character popped Vince and the only silver lining is that someone - maybe Steph but who knows - probably told him that pushing a character like that would turn away fans and Vince still views money as the number one deciding factor in his promotion. So, once again, his love for capitalism outweighed his love for offensive, borderline sexist/racist/homophobic gimmicks. Some things never change. But back to the wrestling talk...I tried NXT 2.0. Still doesn't do it for me. Bron Breakker is cool, I guess, but there are still some elements on the show that are really off-putting. I want to like Beth Phoenix because she seems like a great person, but I don't love her commentary. The production style is still very much WWE and not different enough for me. The setting is obviously not nearly as hot as tuning in to an AEW show. If I only have 2-3 hours of wrestling to watch each week, NXT is still going to fall behind Dynamite, Rampage, and whatever old PPVs/shows that I'm watching for my blog or on recommendation. I'm not sure the ratings will ever drop to the point that USA pulls it because its probably cheap filler for USA to air and they want to keep their partnership with WWE obviously, but will this new version of NXT ever catch hold of a wider audience? I doubt it.

I find it interest in some way that NXT 2.0 could become more "adult" in the near future - which I'm guessing means more T & A, innuendo, and maybe even a lifting of restrictions on some blood - and that among many fans, the feeling is that AEW has pushed them to make these changes. While I think AEW's success is part of it, I think the bigger part of it is that Vince's own tastes are basically that of a middle school boy and, as a middle school teacher, it would make your head spin how fast a 13 year old boy can go from making poop jokes like they're still in elementary school to getting caught in a school staircase engaging in sex acts. That's basically Vince's brain if you look at the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Eras up till 2005. Vince is obviously smart enough to realize that it is far more lucrative to do a PG show and I think that's why RAW and SD will never get much edgier aside from the occasional angle here or there (the Lashley/Lana/Rusev angle, for example). With the low stakes of NXT, though, it doesn't surprise me that he may view it as a sandbox to do the stuff that he himself finds entertaining - scantily-clad women, anti-PC characters, sexual innuendos that only a 13 year old would find clever - but that he knows he doesn't actually want to promote as a full part of the WWE brand.

I would easily call this his biggest match since SummerSlam against Cena. I know the WrestleMania title win is, by its very nature, seen as a "bigger" match but, to me, the real star-making moment was when he beat Cena clean. After that, they basically booked everything in such a messy fashion that by the time we got to Bryan not being in the Rumble, then having to beat Triple H in the opener to get into the main event, it just all felt so overwrought and, dare I say, on the night of, predictable.

I don't necessarily think Dreamer is being "scapegoated." I think there's plenty of guilt, blame, etc. being placed in all the right directions - from JR (Head of Talent Relations and on the plane) to Vince (the buck stops there) to Flair and Scott Hall and Dustin Rhodes and Lesnar and on and on... But I would argue that Dreamer's comments are arguably the most news-worthy and that is why they are catching people by surprise - especially wrestling fans who gobble up this sort of stuff via Twitter and reddit and places like here (myself included). With Flair, we, as wrestling fans, have been in a weird place for at least a decade. We are constantly reconciling the TV character of Ric Flair, who we love, with the emotionally-fragile, tragic figure that we also feel some sympathy for, while simultaneously having to come to terms with the idea that his philandering, his ego, his self-destructive behavior is his own doing and that there were real victims to Ric Flair being Ric Flair. And we have the added weight of knowing that one day, sooner than later, we'll be eulogizing him. Listening to his recent podcast appearance on Renee Young's show was not easy or even all that enjoyable. Flair is going to go out as Ric Flair and that's not a great thing aside from the sick adoration that one might have for his undeniable cavalier spirit. I mean, I think we'd all want Ric Flair to have settled down by now, but its not going to happen. Ever. And there's a twisted beauty in the way that he is going to defy that until his last breath. So, in summation, the reason that we're not all exploding about Ric Flair sexually assaulting someone is not just because we've all heard the stories before, but also because, we've already had this very conversation before - after the 30-for-30, after the last hospitalization, after #SpeakingOut - and we'll have it again in the near future. With Lesnar, Hall, Rhodes, and others, the stories are not only old and well-known among "smart" fans, but most didn't appear on the show. They added no new insights nor did they defend themselves. Like any other news/social media, to really gain traction, the "monster" needs to feed on something new. Tommy Dreamer provided that new blood, that new fuel to the fire. His comments may not have even been all that bad compared to what kind of crap Curt Hennig or Brock Lesnar or Dustin Rhodes would have said at the time...but in 2021, none of these people would or could say anything. But Dreamer did. And what he said was gross. He downplayed a sexual assault because of his pro-wrestling blinders and that was much more shocking, or at least newer, than hearing Story #781 about Ric Flair exposing himself or "the boys" roughhousing, or even H-bombing each other.

I couldn't find a catch-all Talk is Jericho thread so I thought I'd just dump my thought here: Mark Henry was on recently and, as I supposed all along, he left the WWE because they didn't see him as the "executive type." I wonder what could possibly make Henry not look like an executive... Henry has enough class not to just come out and call Vince or the corporate culture he's built outright racist, but I'm guessing that thought has crossed his mind. Henry is also smart enough to know that making such an accusation would be a huge heat-seeking move and would get him blackballed from the company entirely but, again, based on what everyone has said about Henry, the mentorships and scouting he has been a part of, his work as a brand ambassador, his experience...it does raise eyebrows as to why a guy who clearly wanted to be a producer/agent/talent relations employee, checked pretty much every box for it, and was a staunch WWE/Vince supporter, was told to get lost as soon as he dared ask if maybe - just maybe - he could contribute with his knowledge and not just with his brawn. (And before we get into whether or not Mark Henry is "smart enough" to be an executive, when one of your company's vice presidents is racist ass Michael P.S Hayes, you can't tell me that Mark Henry, who comes across as plenty intelligent and knowledgeable in interviews, etc. wouldn't cut it.) Vince can talk all he wants about MLK being his hero, but I'd be curious to know how many people of color he's actually elevated into executive positions over the years. I'm not incredibly knowledgeable about everyone at the top of every department, but I'm willing to wager that the number is close to 0.

In another one of those fun ironies, the WWE has also thrown huge money and cushy contracts with limited dates and main event booking to a whole bunch of guys well into their 40s over the past few years that the best time to leave the company would probably be in your mid-to-late 30s. Based on recent history, at 40 years old, Daniel Bryan can have a great 3-4 year run in AEW and *still* come back, for even more money and even more favorable booking, when he's 45. Goldberg got booked stronger in the WWE after his 48th birthday than he did in his 30s. Edge is getting treated like a bigger star now than he was before his retirement. Obviously it goes without saying how much The Undertaker's been protected over his whole career, but I'm guessing Kane's one-night-return paydays over the years have been sizable. Danielson hasn't burnt any bridge. In fact, he's arguably done the opposite, paving the bridge with gold for his eventual return and Hall of Fame induction.

So...Bill Simmons/The Ringer and the WWE struck a deal recently to produce some content together and I know that, on his podcast, David Shoemaker has talked a bit about CM Punk and All Out, but it definitely strikes me as "odd" that there hasn't been any actual main page articles about AEW considering what a huge event All Out was. I put "odd" in quotes because its really not that odd that WWE would probably have, in some fashion or form, let it be known that they'd prefer The Ringer not cover the "non-competition," especially when the "non-competition" is doing things like putting on almost universally-praised, all-time great PPVs and, according to rumor, doing PPV numbers in the 200k range (which is basically what the lesser WWE shows were striving to get pre-Network). But as someone who likes reading long-form takes about wrestling from a more mainstream, "outside the bubble" view, it does kinda suck that The Ringer will seemingly no longer really be covering the biggest news stories in wrestling in fear that it will hurt Vince's feelings.

I always got the impression that, upon entering WWE, by those us at RSPW and other places, Jericho was seen as the "better Triple H" and I think that comparison remains fairly apt. I'm about as low on Triple H as people can get, but if I look back at my own match reviews of hundreds of hundreds of matches, I'd be lying if Triple H wasn't involved in a dozen 4+ star matches. Jericho, similarly, has a bunch of matches that I think, in context, when I watched them, I found to be really good to great throughout his career and against a fairly wide variety of opponents - from Regal to The Rock to Eddie to various multi-mans in the 2000s. I'd never consider him a super worker, but his resume stands up pretty well (and that's before we even include his higher end stuff against Mysterio and Michaels). As far as charisma/mic work, I think there's some short-changing going on because we're 20+ years removed from the context. At the time, Jericho's irreverent humor was unique and it got him over. It didn't necessarily age well, but context matters. And Jericho continued to carry himself like a star for a long time, which helped make his returns seem like much bigger deals than they really were. I'm far from a Jericho stan and think he himself has a very inflated ego, but saying that he "sucks" and "has always sucked" is going a bit too far the other way.

Not much to add to the conversation, but I go a full 5 stars on this. - Is the "botch" worked? If so, it is even a botch? I think the psychology is actually super sound in that moment. Shawn had pulled that same move on just about everyone and Mankind outsmarts him by not following him into the corner, which is why, in kayfabe, Shawn has that sourpuss face and gets pissed. Michaels thought Mankind was a reckless animal that would instinctively follow him into the corner the way his other opponents did but...nope. Instead, Mankind stays in his corner and Michaels now has to go back to brawling, which leads to a tremendous exchange with Michaels' punches and Mankind's near-Mandible Claw application being even more believable and hard fought. I love moments like this when wrestling doesn't look like overly choreographed ballet but also plays into the characters of both guys. Shawn was the babyface and the babyface usually doesn't get outsmarted. Mankind was an unhinged maniac but revealed that he was actually dangerously intelligent. - As someone else said, the twists and turns of this match are breathtaking. The pacing of this match is breakneck, but its not a sprint and all the major spots are sold well. There is escalation of violence, but also there's actual wrestling too. Even the knock of Mankind not selling the knee for the latter half can be explained away as Foley does actually "stab" himself in the knee to get the feeling back into it. Its "wrestling logic" that this would somehow make one's leg feel better and not worse, but its also Mankind, whose masochism was part of his gimmick, especially at that time. I also love that Shawn losing his cool and getting into it with Hebner, multiple times, pretty much always leads to a shift in momentum. This match isn't "your turn/my turn" because the shifts in control are organic and, again, based on the characters' weaknesses and remarkable toughness/resiliency. - For a match this brutal, with such hard-hitting spots, it actually works completely without any blood. - I think the finish works. Does this match deserve a clean finish? Definitely. But I don't think the finish really detracts too, too much. The crowd certainly doesn't shit on it either. The Undertaker's surprise appearance from the casket is a great moment, too, completely unexpected by the live crowd and, honestly, they produced it really well with the casket being open (without Undertaker inside) just minutes before. I also like that Mankind does actually apply the Mandible Claw towards the end too, further cementing that even if Shawn had it won, there's always the question mark of whether Mankind would've somehow applied his finisher even after eating that chair shot. The saddest thing about this is not that it didn't lead to a Vader/HBK rematch, but rather than it didn't lead to a Shawn/Mankind rematch...though maybe even they knew they couldn't top this.

I found an article that said Owens signed a 5-year extension in 2018, but he's definitely a guy I could see jumping to AEW if there's an opportunity to do so. Like Bryan, Punk, and Moxley, he strikes me as a guy who has saved a considerable amount of his money, enough that simply paying him more would be less enticing than what AEW would offer - specifically a lighter schedule (more time at home), artistic freedom, and arguably greater opportunities to market himself via merchandising, plus a contract that would still likely make him a top earner in AEW. With Owens, you almost have to think Sami Zayn would follow too. Without thinking too hard about it, those two jump out at me as the only real talent worth poaching as they would definitely fit in nicely, can still go at a high level, and are probably itching for more artistic freedom and leeway - especially Kevin Owens, who definitely still has some hardcore matches left in him and would probably sell quite a few shirts on ProWrestling Tees.

I should've clarified that I thought Balor could've won last night and then dropped the title back to Reigns at Extreme Rules. I agree that Roman/Brock is going to be for the belt. I'd disagree on Balor being established as being on the same level as Cena or Edge, though. I think most everyone knew Reigns would retain in both defenses, but there was slightly more of a question mark just because there was at least some talk about Cena possibly getting #17 and Edge getting a "Thank You" championship run (the latter being way less of a possibility in my eyes). Balor beating Reigns on TV for the title would've been a much bigger upset.

I didn't see it, but heard there was a hint that Balor will be bringing back The Demon character to challenge Roman next? I really hope they let Reigns end The Demon completely. I'll admit that there have been times I've been into the "alter ego" wrestler gimmick and I absolutely dug the Demon entrance that Balor used in NXT, but in the WWE, I think the whole concept needs a long, long rest. Its not special for Balor to transform into "The Demon" after we've had multiple iterations of Bray Wyatt and Alexa Bliss, where Nikki Cross did a character 180 and turned into a superhero, where we literally had Damien Priest and The Miz fighting zombies in the past year. Its just too much of this shit with too many wrestlers. Plus, with Roman Reigns playing an ultra cool boss character, its a real clash of character (and not in a good way). Imagine if Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, in peak nWo coolness, were feuding with peak-hokeyness Dungeon of Doom. One was meant to be ultra realistic, the other 100% cartoonish. So, if they do go this way, I hope Reigns no-sells the entire gimmick and cuts a promo about how its all just makeup and lighting and crawling around like a weirdo, laughs it all off, and outright calls Balor a geek who should stick to cosplaying Dungeons and Dragons with other nerds. And I actually thought Balor could've/should've won the title last night in similar fashion as Luger beating Hogan on the Nitro before Road Wild (maybe with some sort of botched Uso interference). No Demon gimmick, just Finn Balor getting a feel good win to establish that he is on the same level as Reigns other recent challengers - Edge, Cena, and now Brock - and could even do something they could not. Plus, it would've given them a story to distract from AEW's big show on Sunday.

Maybe there was a brief time in the early 00s when this would've been a contest, but Christian pretty much left all of his TLC compadres - Edge, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy - in the dust once he came back to the WWE in 2010. From that ECW run on, Christian was arguably in the top 5 of the WWE's sizable roster up until his retirement even if the company never got behind him. And that's not even really a knock against Matt Hardy who, from 05' through maybe 07', I think was one of the most consistently good in-ring workers in the WWE. I used to say/write that Matt Hardy wasn't a guy who was going to steal the show very often, but he would never stink out the joint - which is something you can't say about lots of bigger stars (Taker, HHH, Orton, etc.). His match against Orange Cassidy from Dynamite was a good recent example of that as its not exactly a pairing that anybody was dying to see but it ended up being a good fun TV match - something that became so rare on RAW, for example, that I almost forgot that something so simple could exist. But Christian is just the better, smoother worker, with the better resume in singles competition, and I don't think its very close if you look across their full careers. I guess one could argue that Matt Hardy's Broken Universe could prove he's more creative or a better wrestling mind (though I'm not 100% sure that's accurate either), but if that's the conversation then Raven and Jake Roberts would probably be in way more top 10s...

Very sad news. Definitely an underrated/overlooked talent. I just watched TNA Slammiversary VII a couple months back and was positive on her match, tagging with Raven against Abyss and Taylor Wilde. I know that, ultimately, the bumps and spots she was performing were incredibly dangerous and led to serious injuries (this article from 2011 covers a bunch of it), but it should still be commended how gutsy her performance is. It's not easy to "steal" a hardcore match from Raven and Abyss, but she did. Obviously, she also worked hard to make lemonade out of lemons with David Flair and Crowbar and, on many occasions, succeeded against basically impossible odds. Truth be told, 20 years later, Daffney's character and hijinks, even on a sinking ship, have aged comparatively well versus the one-dimensional, vapid "bimbo" characters that the WWE often highlighted. RIP Daffney

And there are some folks trying to spin it as a disappointment because they assumed CM Punk would somehow do better than RAW, the most established wrestling show in TV history, or SmackDown, which is on network TV. I haven't been able to find them (the website I checked say they won't post until tomorrow or Wednesday), but I'm curious to know how the show fared on the cable ratings compared to whatever else was on on Friday night on cable.

In an interview after The Force Awakens was released, director J.J Abrams explained the reasoning behind saving the reveal of Luke Skywalker till the end of the film. I forget the exact words but it was something about how, once the audience saw Luke, that would be all they wanted to see, that he would essentially overshadow any and every other character and story in the film. And Abrams was right. But its also a really great problem to have. That's what AEW has now with CM Punk. His return last night was so electric - and his segment on Wednesday will probably be equally electric - that it does kind of mean that the segments that follow are going to comparatively less hot. Again, this is a great problem to have, it's just up to AEW putting the right pieces in place to build off of. In 98', Vince figured out how to do it when he built the entire show around Steve Austin and then used his magnetism to get other acts even more over. In 2013, though, Vince was unwilling to do this with Daniel Bryan, never really committing to making him the centerpiece at a time when he was undoubtedly the most over act in the company by a wide margin (and, if I'm not mistaken, Cena was on a hiatus post SummerSlam and Lesnar was also off-screen for a lengthy stretch). AEW has a huge opportunity here. I'm expecting that last night's rating is going to be a big, big number and Wednesday could also do really well. There are more eyeballs on and there's more buzz around the company than ever before. Here's hoping they knock it out of the park and the rest of the roster gets lifted by the high tide CM Punk caused last night.

Its an interesting criticism because some of the other major feuds from that era - HHH/Batista, Jericho/Rey, Jericho/HBK, Taker/Edge, Orton/Christian, Orton/Bryan - definitely had that sort of match-to-match development. Of course, looking at those feuds, whether you're a fan of their work or not, there are some common factors in Jericho, Christian, and even Edge (allow me to step away from the tomatoes being thrown at me) all kinda being "deep thinkers" in the tradition of Mick Foley, envisioning their matches and rivalries as epics with chapters that build off each other. I'm not sure Cena has that same mindset, but even if he did, the booking of his storylines always felt a bit rushed. Like, the first match in the rivalry would be a singles match and then, by the second, it was some huge gimmick match and then, after that, some even bigger gimmick match. Sometimes they skipped right to the gimmick/stipulation match. For example, Punk/Cena at MITB isn't a gimmick match but it did have two stipulations (that Cena would be fired if he lost and Punk was wrestling the "last match on his contract") or Miz/Cena having their WrestleMania match with The Rock basically guaranteed to be involved (and he did, in fact, use his power as Mania Host to restart the match and make it No DQ/No CO). Its hard to build a series of matches when match #1 is No DQ, match #2 is a Last Man Standing, and #3 is a Hell in a Cell and your boss clearly wants big spectacle matches, not the slow boil of Steamboat/Flair.

I went with Rey, though I'm a bigger-than-many Bret fan and totally agree that Bret's best matches are better than Rey's best matches. To me, it might come down to Rey Mysterio being in so many conversations - and maybe even winning some if not all the conversations - of being the best babyface of all time, the best cruiserweight of all time, the best WWE TV worker of all time, the most influential worker of the 90s, etc. With Bret, you're talking about an absolute master of the craft but I'm not sure he really broke the mold to the same degree Rey did. He was still a 6-foot, 200+ pounds, and did headlocks and suplexes. He may not have been the size of Warrior or Hogan, but he was still what a wrestler was. He was the best at it, but he wasn't some 100% new thing. When Rey Mysterio showed up in WCW, he was a true revelation - way more than Ultimo Dragon or Psicosis or Dean Malenko or whoever else. Sure, people who knew about ECW or Mexican or Japanese wrestling had seen high-flyers, including Rey, before, but to people like me - who were 11-12 years old and only knew WWE and WCW - Rey Mysterio was unbelievable. I mean, I had read in PWI magazines about what international wrestling was, but no words had me prepared for seeing what Rey did on Nitro in 96'. And you can go back and watch those matches and they're still absurdly amazing 25 years later even when we now see so, so many guys who can do those same moves or even more complicated moves. And then, in WWE, while his booking was imperfect, I do think they did a much better job of utilizing him as an actual part of the "heavyweight" roster than WCW ever did. It took them awhile to get there, but eventually, he did have great matches with all sorts of wrestlers, many times pulling out career-best matches from oafs and monsters that would otherwise bore the crowd to tears. Bret had the same gift, but while Bret only had to wrestle Kane (Isaac Yankem) on PPV one time (and maybe a TV match? Maybe a couple house shows?), I feel like Mysterio probably had to turn that shit to gold a hundred times on TV, PPV, and house shows over the years. Call it the curse of longevity, but its another point to Rey. And not just with Kane either, but with basically every big man that needed the rub of pulverizing an undersized babyface. And yet Mysterio never lost his overness or appeal no matter how many people crushed him over the years. It doesn't matter in the context of this conversation, but could you imagine Bret being willing to do the number of jobs that Rey did over the years? And Bret doesn't even have a bad reputation for that. Its just that Rey was undoubtedly even more giving to far more wrestlers, most of whom shouldn't have even been lacing his boots. I also think this is an interesting choice because Bret has been so openly complimentary towards Rey, often mentioning him as a guy he wish he would've worked with right alongside Angle and Cena. I don't think Bret ranks that many people as better than himself, but I'd be curious if even the Hitman would have to admit that Rey is right there next to him.

I doubt that the age thing will play too big of a role for the women's division. But that doesn't mean there probably won't continue to be, as there has always been, a specific look that they tend to push more. I know Shotzi has her supporters here, but I don't see her getting a real push. I think Vince sees women like her - and Ember and Ruby Riott before her - as just this generation's Luna Vachons. I predict we will see an increase in fitness models/bodybuilders, etc. rather than them going out and signing trained wrestlers or international talent. More Alexa Blisses, less Becky Lynches. But, again, what the WWE should be thinking is that hard-and-fast rules are not the point. Its not size or age or even a particular body type, its how they're utilized and if they're given an opportunity to shine. Eddie Kingston wouldn't check off a single box for Vince, Bruce, Dunn, or even Triple H, but there was a time last year - even if it was maybe fleeting - that he was the most talked-about, must-see performer in any US company. Like, hand him a mic and he's going to talk you into thinking he's a threat against Roman Reigns, Kenny Omega, anyone.

It definitely strikes me that Vince/Prichard/Dunn's argument that "The problem is these guys are just too small" as particularly funny when, whether one believes they're good/bad/lazy/lost a step, there have been any number of people with decent enough size that the WWE has failed to use properly. They just released Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman. Obviously, one could argue that Bray's 8-year run (just as the Bray Wyatt character, not counting Husky Harris) was about as long a run as anyone should/could expect, but it still does kinda feel like a missed opportunity to create a star that could've lasted twice as long. Strowman had 6 years but, considering what he could've been, it doesn't seem like they maximized his potential. Nakamura might not be a giant, but when he first came to the company, he was red hot. Plus, at 6'2'', its not like he looked particularly small against guys like Orton, Cena (6'1''), etc. In hindsight, after the reaction he got in his first NXT match, they should've pulled him up to the main show immediately. Not going to defend what eventually came to light about him, but Velveteen Dream is another guy they let die on the vine. Had size. Had charisma. Had a unique gimmick. Could work well enough to be on TV and continue to progress on a touring brand at the time. Doctors need 7+ years in training, wrestlers don't. Big Cass is another one who obviously had some issues going on but, again, him and Enzo were the type of team that they could've run with for years and years...but decided to split up within 12-15 months of being called up. Karrion Cross got called up to job to Jeff Hardy this summer. Even if the storyline is that he's going to become a threat once he's reunited with Scarlet, the first impression is that he's not really a threat/top guy. Is Retribution still around? I don't watch the weekly shows. Aren't there big guys in that group like Dijakovic? They gave them stupid masks and stupid names. DOA. I'm of the mind that Keith Lee is getting released sooner than later. I'd be shocked if they do anything with him. Austin Theory is 6'1, shredded, and handsome but unless they've magically found a great gimmick/personality for him, he's a midcarder at best. Elias has size and even got his gimmick over a bit. Unfortunately, the gimmick is 1-dimensional and no longer remotely fresh. The Sons of Anarchy guys had/have size, but again, lame 1-dimensional biker gimmicks that we've seen before being played by guys that have no actual charisma, personality, or unique style. Otis, while short, has a unique look, legit credentials, charisma, and had a great storyline with Mandy Rose. They even gave him the MITB...before doing so little with him that they gave the briefcase to Miz instead because they couldn't figure out a way to use Otis even nominally for months and months. Oh, and they released his tag partner, who had size and some potential, without even really giving him a chance. The biggest success stories out of NXT, off the top of my head and just thinking of the men, were Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Finn Balor and, let's be honest, these three came into NXT already experienced, with sizable fan bases, and, whether their your cup of tea or not, styles and moves and personalities that made them stand out. At a certain point, you can't just blame the size of the bat when you're batting average over the past year is well below .200. Especially when you have access to bats of all shapes and sizes.

With Wyatt and Braun released, I'm not surprised anyone from NXT is seen as expendable, especially someone like Bronson Reed. They haven't used a wrestler with his size or look for over a decade now aside from maybe a couple months (for comedy usually). Otis, Tyrus (who was 6'9 too!), there was also that Bull Dempsey guy in NXT for awhile too. I'll be shocked if they really do anything with Keith Lee. I've never "got" Cole and find it absolutely incredible that Vince is supposedly working hard to re-sign him or that, if he doesn't re-sign with WWE, that AEW would be interested. He's just one of those guys where I really struggle to see any upside aside from being a "good hand" and maybe a slightly above-average promo. Seems like a good dude and all and I'm glad he's found success, but I just don't see him as anything close to a top guy. Hell, I don't even see him as an IC/US champion-level guy. Just way too small, no unique style or character in any way I can see, his success in NXT more based on him being an indie/Bullet Club guy wrestling in front of audience that already held him in high regard rather than him actually doing anything special.

I liked this enough but, on my scale, 4 *s means that you really should see it if you're a fan of the WWE/major wrestling shows. Obviously, if you can't stand this genre of cage match - which is weapons-heavy but still somewhat "safe" with only a little bit of incidental blood (Undertaker's arm gets nicked but its nothing major) - this is not going to convert you, but to the common WWE fan, sure, this is probably in the Top 10 of Cell Matches. Edge, as others have pointed out, is really at his best when the rules are thrown out the window and he can use all the "toys" that he desires - chairs, ladders, tables, cell walls, cameras. But I'd also add that, even though this is a put down and a knock on his actual wrestling talent, at the same time, what he does do well, he tends to do really well. Is Edge somehow the secret greatest WWE hardcore wrestler of all time??? I mean, if we agree that Foley is #1, a case could be made that Edge is #2 based on the various tag matches with the Hardys and the Dudleys, the WrestleMania match against the aforementioned Foley, the TLC match against Cena, and then this match too. I'll take Edge in this setting over Triple H, for sure (whose had plenty of similar big gimmick matches) and non-wrestler Shane McMahon. Again, it may seem like faint praise, but then again, being a spectacle-based performer was as viable a path to being a WWE main eventer as anything else from 05'-10', when Edge was in that role. I like this version of Taker too. As the OP mentioned, the build for this was really about Edge, so Taker comes in kinda like a true grim reaper, a symbol of Justice/Revenge, not so much the catalyst as the demon summoned out of the ether to make Edge atone for his sins. The fact that Taker and Edge have their own history over the previous months is still there, no doubt, but really this is about Edge getting his comeuppance from the baddest dude on the block. Its Taker as Vickie's avatar. I find that to be oddly cooler than Undertaker wrestling this match because "it's personal." Somehow, it's not. This is Taker stepping up as the one man who can stop Edge's megalomania. And the match is wrestled that way too, as Edge, from the very beginning, has an expression on his face like he's about to jump out of an airplane. He's not fearful so much as he's bracing himself for what it is in store. Its put up-or-shut up time and he's going to do whatever it takes to survive. So he grabs everything that's not glued down and throws his all into it. No headlocks. No "setting a pace." Its all-or-nothing time. Of course, Taker can sustain all the punishment in the world so Edge tries to layer on the violence. He doesn't even gloat all that much. He's pretty focused on the assault. But its never enough. The Deadman won't die. And, by the end, Edge ends up receiving all the punishment he thought would put him down. If it wasn't so heavy-handed, it would almost be poetic. Maybe "sisyphean" is the word I'm looking for? So, in summation, I'm going to go thumbs-up on this. If you don't like Edge, if you don't like Taker, this match is simply not for you. But if you like Edge in this context, if you like Taker in this context, if you're not totally cold on (relatively) bloodless Hell in a Cell matches, well, I don't see how this won't entertain you. Again, I'm somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars. Is it "must see"? Is it "should see"? Is it "inessential"? Its somewhere in between those qualifiers to me. I will say this, though - I think younger fans, fans that are unaware/ignorant in wrestling before 2002 or so (y'know, like those of us who aren't 35+ years old), would probably consider this an amazing match. This is absolutely a match you could show to a younger fan in 2021 and they would be blown away for sure. (Ditto for the Cena/Batista match that comes before it.)

^ And once again someone has taken my rambling and absolutely nailed what I was (failing) to say succinctly. And just because its my nature to overdo things, I'll just add, I'm not a Wyatt stan. I just think that he clearly has his fans and, on some nights, those fans were the loudest portion of the crowd. Whether it was everyone doing the firefly thing with their phones or, at SummerSlam a couple years back chanting "This Is Awesome" at his entrance, or singing "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" at WrestleMania whatever...Bray absolutely had his moments of feeling like a special character in a company with lots and lots of forgettable, interchangeable CAWs. Granted, one could just as easily point to some of the awful, awful segments and feuds and booking too, but its a credit to Wyatt that, even as it became increasingly clear that the gimmick could only last a couple weeks here and there before Vince would zap it of whatever made it work (leading to yet another fan backlash), there was Bray, coming back every couple of months and getting over again.

I don't think its that Bray's ideas don't translate - I think its that "horror movie villain" is a tough character to shoehorn into a show that also wants to be everything for everyone. I think that's why Bray connected with such a big part of the audience: horror movies are many people's favorite thing. Like heavy metal. Horror and heavy metal don't just have fans, they have rabid, loyal mega-cult followings. And Bray spoke to that audience. At times, I actually thought he did co-exist well in the WWE's world - but, then, there were other times he clearly didn't or was booked in a way that directly contradicted what a horror movie villain is. So, instead of a Taker/Wyatt feud being an epic clash like Freddie vs. Jason, for example, it was just basically a Taker squash. Ditto for the time Lesnar ran through all the members of the Family in one match. The Fiend no-selling wasn't good, but its worth remembering, he did actually show some vulnerability against Daniel Bryan and others. I could never know for sure, but I think the no-selling was a bad agent idea or an idea from Vince himself who didn't really understand what Bray Wyatt - in any of his incarnations - was actually supposed to be. The Fiend, to me, was not supposed to be superhuman Michael Myers - it was supposed to be a deranged lunatic cosplaying as Michael Myers, a fully human pyschopath who, when wearing a mask, slipped into a state where he believed he "felt no pain" and was as brutal as could be (if you're a horror buff, I'm kinda thinking like Vince Vaughn in the opening of Freaky). I'd be very curious to know whose idea having red lights on for whole matches was but, again, I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually not a Bray Wyatt idea, just a bad production element from someone who thought it would look cool (but didn't). Which is why I almost hope Bray goes somewhere unexpected like Impact. I think there's actually something that can be done with him as your resident monster, but you have to go in 100% with it - not with bad lighting and goofy hocus pocus, but with the crucial detail that, no, he's not just another wrestler, that he is legitimately dangerous, that, like any good horror movie villain, he's merciless but also maybe beguiling, that its not about titles or victories, he's got motives that are beyond evil. The dangerous cult leader. The psychopath in a mask. The creepy Mr. Rogers figure who is coming for your children. I think Bray, in his best moments, proved that they can work in a wrestling context and his loyal following speaks to that. But for every one or two great things they did with Bray (or Bray did for himself), the WWE seemed to do 10 things to make him a joke.